The Experience Advocacy Taskforce (EAT) has launched its new website today. Founded by our own advisory board member, Greg Graham, EAT advocates for an equal and diverse media workforce and advertising industry that values experience.
In late 2022, Greg a.k.a. Sparrow, was the proud recipient of the Media Federation of Australia’s Hall of Fame award. In his powerful acceptance speech, amongst the highlights (and lowlights) he shared, one of the lowlights was and is ageism.
In a world of diversity and inclusion, it is a topic that has not had nearly enough attention. He shared to the audience, only 5% of employees in an agency are over 50. When he was challenged on this figure, he found out the statistics were even worse in Australia as most of those over 50 were in support units such as Finance, HR, IT etc.
Actions speak louder than words and post the award night, he founded the Experience Advocacy Taskforce. The taskforce, led by volunteer advertising industry leaders, collaborates to reframe, reinforce, and redress workforce ageism in our industry. They do this by fostering industry-wide collaboration for impactful initiatives that combat age discrimination of workers over 40+yrs and promote working environments that value experience as part of the diversity and inclusion mix.
I’ve been doing this (job) for 50 years and this industry has been my livelihood, my life, my friends, my family. I’m really privileged to have had some lifetime experiences doing this amazing job. However, I would like to leave you with this. I think we’re ageist and we need to do better and look after older people. So, if you really believe in diversity, we need to fix ageism. Greg Graham
The website was donated to EAT by Affinity Agency Group. To check it out and participate in this important discussion, click here.
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